


A Real Charmer

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daemon Charmer Prompto, Happy Ending, M/M, mild horror elements mixed with humor, smut in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 15:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11831841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: “I don’t know how to tell you this, Prompto,” Ignis said, in a soft, horrified voice, “but you may have befriended a daemon.”----------Prompto discovers that he has a real way with words when it comes to daemons. What happens, then, when he meets a man who might in fact be several hundred daemons in a suit? Shenanigans, that’s what.(A fill for the kinkmeme!)





	1. Chapter 1

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Prompto,” Ignis said, in a soft, horrified voice, “but you may have befriended a daemon.”

Prompto Argentum crouched on his toes, holding a carrot in one hand and his camera in the other, and looked at the miniature deer stamping at the edge of the haven. Its tiny hooves were caked in sand, and its stubby nose quivered as it rocked forward, reached the daemon-repelling runes of the haven, and fell back again. Its button tail wagged furiously, and it blinked wide, liquid eyes up at Prompto.

“But it’s just a Quay deer,” Prompto said. “It… It’s shy.” He clicked his tongue and waggled the carrot, and the deer made a noise of distress. 

Ignis sighed. 

Prompto had found the deer standing off to the side of a herd of the tiny creatures on their way back from a late night fishing trip. Every time the poor thing approached the main herd, the other deer would scatter in a frantic thumping of hooves, and Prompto felt so sorry for it that he inched up to it, hand out, and cooed nonsense until it turned its gaze to him. It had watched him warily, body poised to leap, but when Prompto finally reached it, murmuring _How good you are, you cute little buddy, my best dude,_ it stepped forward and butted its head against Prompto’s palm. 

Then it had followed them, twining around Prompto’s heels as he took picture after picture, until it had stopped at the haven, blocked as though by an invisible wall. 

Ignis moved around the camp stove and pulled out his knife.

“Woah,” Prompto said, dropping the carrot. “Iggy, hold on.”

He became aware of a faint hissing sound before him, and Prompto turned back to the miniature deer. It braced its chubby little legs on the stone, and opened its mouth wide, then wider, then wider still, its jaw unhinging as it revealed only inky blackness where its tongue should be. The hissing grew louder, and the sharp fangs and yellow eyes of glistening snakes began to pour from its open maw—

“Hey!” Prompto said. “Stop that.”

The snakes retreated. The daemon-deer’s jaw clicked back into place, and it shut its mouth. 

Ignis took another step forward, and the hissing started up again. 

“No,” Prompto said. He picked up the carrot. “Don’t do that, little dude. No snakes.”

The deer ducked its head and backed into the dark. “I didn’t say you should go!” Prompto called, and would have clambered after it if it hadn’t been for Gladio’s firm grip holding him back. 

“Right,” said Noctis, in the silence that followed. “ _I’m_ having nightmares for weeks.”

Gladio waited until it seemed like Prompto wasn’t about to lurch right into a pit of daemons disguised as animal sidekicks from a children’s movie, and let him go. Prompto sat down heavily on the stone. In the distance, they could hear the small thumping of hooves on sand, and subdued sounds that could, in theory, come from a mouthful of snakes.

“I believe I might need some wine,” Ignis said. 

“I think I might join you,” said Gladio. 

Prompto only sat there, staring down at his own hands as the daemon deer stumbled around in the dark beyond, hissing in shame.

 

\---

 

A few days later, Noct was dragging the three of them out on a hunt in the middle of the night when Gladio spotted the imp.

It was lurking behind them, gibbering softly to itself, its sharp claws gleaming in the light of the moon. Ignis groaned and directed Noctis to ready a fire spell: If there was one imp, chances were there would be at least a dozen more, waiting to spring out as soon as their guard was down. 

“This is the fifth time we’ve had to fight these guys,” Noct whispered. “I’m so sick of this.”

“Too bad they aren’t a bunch of Quay deer,” Gladio said. Prompto looked from him to the imp, and Gladio made a _cut it out_ gesture with one hand. “Hold it, Prompto. That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“Let me try, okay?” Prompto said. “Maybe they’re like… I dunno, like animals or something.” He crouched down, looking directly at the imp, and Gladio covered his face with a hand. “Hey, little guy. Hey, how are you?”

The imp narrowed its eyes. 

“Yeah, you’re being so smart, tracking us all this way,” Prompto said, practically crawling forward. “Such a clever guy, huh? My friend Ignis is pretty smart, too.”

“Please,” Ignis said, “Do not compare me to an—“

“And you know what’s even better than that?” Prompto said. “Better than following us or killing us? Leaving us alone. You know? Don’t you wanna, oh, hide in a cave somewhere? Sun’s coming up in a few hours, and you don’t wanna be caught in the sunlight, do you?”

The imp, to Prompto’s shock, shook its head. 

“I wouldn’t want that, either,” Prompto said. “So how about you and your friends, you all go and keep yourselves safe, huh?” The imp hesitated, and he added, “It would make me feel better if I knew you were all together, buddy.”

The sagebrush surrounding Prompto rustled. One by one, emerging like fiddler crabs in the dark sands of the beach, imps scuttled into view. They kept a wide circle around Noct, Gladio, and Ignis, but crowded up near Prompto, who had to flap his hands at them before they would skitter away. He kept waving, shooing them as one or two turned back to stare, until he was alone in the imp-less patch of desert. 

“I can’t believe this,” Gladio said. 

“I got it all on video,” whispered Noct. 

Prompto walked back to them, trying to hide the wellspring of panic that built in his throat at the thought of all those daemons jostling for attention before him. “Looks like it worked!” he said, in a voice that was a little too high. “Maybe it’s just my _charming nature_ , right, guys?”

“Maybe you can try it on one of those red giants next time,” Noctis said, but Prompto had the sneaking suspicion that he was only half joking. He scanned the horizon, which was mercifully free of imps, and ran a shaking hand through his hair. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, maybe I can.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, Noct!” 

Prompto leaned over from the passenger’s seat of the Regalia, pointing to an overpass approaching on their right. “Can we stop for a photo?”

“Don’t think that’s possible, Prompto,” Noct said through gritted teeth. He kept his eyes locked on the mauve and white car driving sedately ahead of them. “This _Ardyn_ guy says I gotta stay in sight, so I’m staying in sight.”

“Maybe we can ask,” Prompto said. In the back seat, Ignis lunged for a can of Ebony. “I mean it. Look, just drive next to him, it won’t be an issue.”

“Do you want to _die?_ ” Noct asked, but he groaned and slammed on the gas anyways, sidling alongside Ardyn’s car. Ardyn slowed down, and gave Noct a curious look. 

“I _did_ ask that you not overtake me,” he said. Noct rolled his eyes.

“It’s not him, it’s me,” Prompto said. He hung out the window, leaning so close to Ardyn’s car that he could reach out and grab the door handle. “There’s this really cool canyon up ahead, and the lighting’s _perfect_ for a photo. I know you guys have some kind of car-related pissing contest going on—“ Gladio snorted, and Ignis kicked him in the shin. “But I swear, it’s just gonna be a minute.”

“Prompto,” Ignis whispered. “He isn’t one of your Quay deer.” Prompto blushed, and Ardyn raised an eyebrow, looking him over.

Quay deer had been officially adopted as another term for _Whatever Weird Shit Prompto Can Do To Daemons,_ which was actually quite a lot, once Prompto put effort into it. It helped when the daemons they encountered weren’t actively trying to kill them, of course. After an attempt to quell a red giant by shouting, “Maybe you shouldn’t!” while it was backhanding Noct only led to Noct being _front_ -handed, the others tried shoving Prompto into the line of fire first.

Turned out that red giants reacted really well to wheedling.

So, apparently, did Ardyn.

“Oh, very well,” he said, and Prompto grinned. “For his highness’ collection.”

They parked on the bridge, and Prompto got out into the middle of the road, almost causing a traffic accident as he set up his tripod. Ardyn stood off to the side, watching him as he directed his friends to where the light would best hit them, and tugged his hat down over his dark purple hair. 

Almost the same color as his car, Prompto realized. 

Which looked pretty good in the light coming off the edge of Ravatogh, come to think of it. Prompto waved a hand, and Ardyn glanced up. 

“Can you lean on your car?” he asked. “It’ll make a really good shot if you—not there. A little to the left. Right, yeah, and can you tilt your head…” He stopped, and stepped away from the tripod. It was a problem, he knew, and Gladio had slapped his hand more than once when he tried to arrange his friends like they were dolls just for the sake of a photo, but some habits died hard. Prompto placed his fingers under Ardyn’s chin and nudged his face to the side. 

“Prompto,” Noct whispered. 

“Oh. Oh, shit, sorry,” Prompto said. He yanked his hand back, and Ardyn blinked. His eyes looked nearly gold up close, and his cheekbones were delicate and rounded, like Noct. “I get kind of carried away sometimes. Um.”

Ardyn’s lips were slightly open, and his brows lowered in bewilderment for all of a second before he shot Prompto a sunny smile. 

“No need to worry, dear boy,” he said. “Far be it from me to impede you in your work.”

He kept his head tilted the way Prompto had moved it, though, so Prompto took the shot anyways. 

“Thanks,” he said. “You were great.” 

Again, there was a brief moment of confusion, which Ardyn hastily covered with a smirk. “Any time, of course,” he said. “May I?” He held out his hand for the camera, and Prompto passed it over. His fingers brushed along the ridge of Ardyn’s knuckles, and he felt a shiver at the contact. Ardyn winked at the camera and snapped a selfie. 

“There,” he said. “Perfect.”

Thanks to the sudden photoshoot, they barely made it to their destination before sunset. Prompto hopped out of the car and stretched his legs while Ardyn and Noctis debated over where to set up camp. Ardyn was opposed to camping at a haven, which meant that for once in his life, Noctis had become an avid outdoorsman who _couldn’t_ sleep unless it was in a tent under the stars. 

“Hey!” Prompto said, swinging an arm around Noct’s shoulders. “How about we grab something to eat? Iggy’s fighting with the oven in the caravan, and I’m dead on my feet, dude.”

“Too much diner food in my life, Prom,” Noct said, at the same time that Ardyn said, “Well, I’m hardly hungry, but I can certainly accompany you.”

Noct and Prompto stared at Ardyn. 

“Huh,” said Prompto, after a second. “Sure. Let me know if you need anything, right, Noct?” 

Thirty minutes later, Prompto leaned back in his booth, kicking his feet up on the chair opposite. “You’re kidding,” he said. 

“I am entirely serious,” Ardyn said. Prompto’s foot pushed against his leg on one side, but he didn’t seem to notice. He gestured to the drawing of Kenny Crow on the protective paper over the diner table. “This method of advertising was created in the Mech Age, when Astrals were used to sell things like, oh, toiletries, weapons…”

“And fries,” Prompto said, using one of his own to point at Ardyn. “But I don’t see how someone could look at _Bahamut_ and come up with the design for Kenny Crow.”

“Nevertheless, it’s true,” Ardyn said. “You, my dear Prompto, have spent the past twenty years of your life eating off the face of one of the most revered so-called gods in the universe.”

“Wow,” Prompto said. “I almost feel bad for being scared of him for so long.” He glanced out the window, where he could see Gladio and Ignis talking under the caravan awning. “We should go. You sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

“The atmosphere is enough, thank you,” Ardyn said. Prompto snorted and swung his legs back down. He scooted out of the booth, and, without thinking, placed a hand on Ardyn’s shoulder, just like he would with one of the guys. 

“Sorry,” he said, and quickly pulled away. 

“No,” Ardyn said, his voice coming out quick and short. “No, that’s. That’s quite alright.” He stood, and pressed a hand to the small of Prompto’s back, gently guiding him out of the diner. “Now, you were saying that you wanted to be a photojournalist?”

 

\---

 

“I can’t believe he’s really the _enemy,_ though,” Prompto said two days later, as he, Gladio, Noct, and Ignis huddled around a table at the Wiz Chocobo Post. He slipped bits of his burger bun down to a round, beady-eyed chocobo chick that had taken residence at his feet, and smiled at the faint horking sound it made as the bread went down. 

“I can,” said Noct. 

“But I don’t know, he was nice,” said Prompto. 

Ignis looked up from where he was brushing soot off his only spare suit. “Prompto,” he said. “Need I remind you that just a week ago, you said that a mindflayer was, and I quote, _Not that bad?_ ”

“It wasn’t,” Prompto said, and the others shuddered. “No, really. The tentacles weren’t even slimy, and it was like it just wanted to shake hands but had, you know, too many hands to do it with—“

“I’m not having this conversation a second time,” Noct said. “Anyways, Ardyn Izunia, of _Niflheim,_ stole our fucking car, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t think he’s nice—Oh, fuck my _life._ ”

The umbrellas over the dining area of the Chocobo Post whipped into a frenzy as a top class Niflheim airship roared over the trees that lined the road. The red fire of its engine made the squawking chocobos look orange, and when the bay doors slammed open, Noct and his friends were already on their feet with their weapons drawn, preparing for the clatter and creak of Magitech armor hitting the street. 

Ardyn Izunia stepped out of the airship, hips swaying as he strode down the metal walkway. 

“Hello there!” he called. “It seems I have recovered your vehicle!”

Noct lowered his weapon. Gladio raised his, stepping in front of Noct, and Ignis cast a wary look to Prompto, who crossed his arms. 

“There you go,” he said, as Ardyn bowed them towards the waiting Regalia. “Nice.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wherein things escalate.

Even Prompto had to admit it was starting to get kind of weird. Ardyn was a thorn in their side before, showing up to smirk at Noct and throw coins at people like money-hurling was something totally ordinary and not at all a sign of someone who didn’t know the basic rules of common decency. Which, according to Noctis, started with _throwing fucking coins at people_ and ended with _stealing my dad’s fucking car._ But after the car stealing fiasco, when Noct summoned three of his ancient weapons at once and Prompto had to get between him, Gladio, and Ardyn while Ignis quietly planned Prompto’s funeral in advance, Ardyn just wouldn’t _go away._

He was at Old Lestallum when they stopped to try out the diner food at the original Crow’s Nest. He was walking along the slough of Duscae when Prompto wanted to take pictures of the catoblepas, and was the only one who posed long enough to get _right_ under the monster’s tusks without running for it. He was in Lestallum listening to musicians play at the outlook. He was at Galdin when they stopped in for an actual hotel bed. 

It always started out the same: He and Noct would snark at each other, his voice _oozing_ with good will that was probably just a thin cover for the weirdest non-rivalry Prompto had ever seen. But then, after Prompto had talked to him a bit, the mocking edge disappeared from his voice. He still talked like a used car salesman with years of etiquette lessons, but his expressions changed more, and he seemed more open. He had the kind of morbid, self-deprecating humor that made Prompto crack up but caused Ignis and Gladio to shift uncomfortably—Maybe it had something to do with Prompto’s recent crash-course in daemonology. Talking a flan into calming down long enough to be patted like a giant, misshapen dog did things to people. So did making spider-women laugh, or convincing a naga to turn Noct into a frog just for kicks.

Noct still hadn’t forgiven him for _that_ one.

“It wasn’t always like this,” Ardyn told him one afternoon, when he just _happened_ to be passing by Galdin on his way through Leide. He was accompanying Prompto up the side of the hill while Gladio glared them down from the dock, where Noct was slowly fishing the waters of Galdin dry. His hat had been tucked under his arm after the first gust of wind nearly sent it flying, and his mauve hair kept getting in his eyes. “Galdin used to be a farming village. Do you see the way the cliffs are shaped?” 

Prompto followed the line made by his hand. “Like steps, sort of?”

“Exactly. One of my—An advisor to an old Lucian king arranged the whole affair. The beach was a mite further away at the time, as you can imagine.” 

Prompto grabbed at Ardyn’s hand, and hauled himself up over a rock made slippery with moss. “Did they have the little deer around here as well?” he asked. The herd they’d come across earlier was a bit smaller than it had been last time, and Prompto was starting to worry. 

“I certainly never saw any,” Ardyn said. Prompto squinted at him, and he flashed another one of those quick smiles, the ones Prompto was starting to suspect were his version of an awkward laugh. “In my records, that is. I’m only a historian as a hobby, dear Prompto.”

“Yeah,” Prompto said. “Sure.” He sat down against another cliff-face, and draped his arms over his knees. “Ardyn. If I ask you something, can you answer me honestly?”

“Can I—of course, my d—“

“Not like that,” Prompto told him, and Ardyn’s smile froze. “I mean… isn’t it kind of exhausting? Doing the whole, _my dear, my sweet, hell-o-o-o dear Noctis_ thing?”

“It isn’t a _thing,_ ” Ardyn said, sitting next to him. He adjusted the fit of his jacket so the sleeves wouldn’t ride up his arms, and looked down, to where Noct was dragging a massive fish out of the water. 

“You only _dear Prompto_ me when you’re hiding something,” Prompto said. “I just want to know. If I ask you a question, can you answer me straight?”

“I’m afraid I might,” Ardyn said. 

“And that’s a bad thing?”

Ardyn looked at him then, eyes narrowing in a question Prompto knew he’d never ask. Prompto lifted a hand, as warily as he would when facing down an unknown daemon, and brushed Ardyn’s hair out of his eyes. 

“Why are you following us, Ardyn?” Prompto asked. His fingers slipped through Ardyn’s hair, kneading it gently. Ardyn blinked so slowly that it seemed as though he were about to drift off. “You’re supposed to be a chancellor, right? Why are you here?”

He didn't want to say it. Never mind that Ardyn was letting him stroke his hair, or that he was always pushing up against him, reaching out to him, sinking into every touch. Never mind that he treated his snide back-and-forth with Noct like an afterthought, these days. Prompto wasn't about to make a fool of himself just because Ardyn was... was _nice._

“I don’t know,” Ardyn said, in a listless drawl. “This is all very irregular. Perhaps…”

“Yeah?” 

Ardyn stared at him for a moment, searching Prompto’s face. Then he held the hand that carded through his hair, and kissed him.

Prompto could count on one hand how many times he’d been kissed in his life. The terrible house party in tenth grade. His high school graduation. A few practice make-out sessions with Noct, back when Noct was worried that his not-very-mysterious-crush would kiss him once and decide that was it, no sex ever. Nothing serious. 

Prompto’s foot slipped, and he fell against a tree root as he tried, to the best of his ability while falling over himself, to kiss Ardyn back. He felt a knee part his thighs, a hand glide up to his neck, and something like a smile curving against his lips as Ardyn’s stubble scraped along his cheek. 

“I don’t understand this,” Ardyn said, when he’d left Prompto panting for breath in the coarse grass of the cliff. “It’s like coming out of a fog.” He kissed Prompto’s jaw, and murmured into his neck. “Learning to walk again.”

“Hey,” Prompto said. “I like you, too.”

Ardyn laughed at that, soft and _just_ a little hysterical, in Prompto’s opinion. “I apologize,” he said. “I was too forward. What’s the custom, now? It used to be that one would gift a bard to their intended, but I understand that it would be seen as problematic for the chancellor of Niflheim to, oh, grab a musician off the street—“ 

“Dinner works,” Prompto said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a bard if I had one.”

“I kept mine in a house in the country,” Ardyn said. 

Prompto waited for the inevitable smirk to appear. It didn’t. “You’re serious,” he said. “You actually kept a… is that a thing people do in Niflheim?”

“Not anymore,” Ardyn admitted.

“Who gave you—how do you even—“ 

“Dinner first,” Ardyn said. “Then I _might_ … Ah, that machine of yours is screaming again.”

Prompto yelped, suddenly aware of the buzzing of his phone, and Ardyn sat up as he fished it out of his back pocket. Noct. Why was Noct calling? Prompto swiped the phone on and held it to his ear with his shoulder. 

“Noct, I’m kind of bus—“

“The _fuck,_ Prompto?” 

Prompto looked down to the dock, where Ignis was standing with his back to them, one hand on his forehead, Gladio was grinning wide enough for even Prompto to see, and Noct was hunching over his phone with the look of the truly betrayed. 

“I can explain,” Prompto said. Behind him, Ardyn sighed.

“Yeah,” said Noct. His voice was tinny and loud in the silence of the cliffs. “Yeah, you’d better. This isn’t like giving a goblin your leftover tofu, Prom—“

Ardyn’s brows knit together. “How would one get close enough to try such a thing?”

“Tell you later,” Prompto hissed.

“This is the fucking chancellor of Niflheim!” Noct shouted. 

“Is he putting me _below_ a goblin in his list of acceptable people to court you,” Ardyn said, “or am I misunderstanding something in his unique train of thought?”

“Woah, you’re right,” Prompto said. “Noct, dude, I don’t think I’m ready to make that step. I only graduated from imps like, two months ago.”

“Prompto,” Noct said, in the voice of a man on the edge. “I’d rather you made out with a sack of daemons in a _suit_ than this guy—“

Prompto could have sworn that he heard Ardyn mutter something like, _That can be arranged,_ but let it slide. “Okay, Noct. Buddy. Calm down. I’ll be down there in a second.”

“I’m not a fucking Quay deer,” Noct moaned.

“Not like we didn’t see it coming, though,” said Gladio, and the line went dead as Noct rounded on his shield. 

“So!” Prompto turned to Ardyn with his brightest, fakest smile. “You want to head down and watch Noct self-combust with me?”

“Oh, Prompto,” Ardyn said, taking his hand. “Nothing would please me more.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief change in perspective!

Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the King of Light and sacrificial lamb to the Starscourge, had been dead for nearly two thousand years. 

He wasn’t certain when it happened. It could have started the first time he pulled the Scourge out of a living host. It could have been the day he laid hands on a daemon and felt it pour into his flesh like water through a sieve, bringing with it all the pain, the helplessness, the singular misery of what had once been a human as they felt their own soul succumb to the plague. It could have been when the usurper took the throne that had rightfully been his. It could have been when he lowered himself to beg at the Astrals’ feet, two hundred years old and desperate for an ending. 

But somewhere along the line, the man Ardyn was had slipped into the twisting, roiling consciousness that was the Scourge he’d consumed. For a few hundred years, he would have moments of lucidity, scant minutes when he’d blink awake to find himself in a new country, a new identity, looking up at a new pattern of stars. Then the insistent roar of the Scourge would drown out all clear thought, pulling him back into an in-between state, a sleepwalker driven by spite and the residual yearning to see it _end._

Then Prompto Argentum, the awkward, wide-eyed sharpshooter with Verstael Besithia’s young face and shoulders too broad for a typical ranged-fighter MT, seemed to have dragged the old king back to life. Prompto could have slipped through the crowds of old Lucis with little trouble: He reminded Ardyn of the old priests and priestesses of Eos, who lived before the first wave of the Scourge obscured the sun. They were a strange, mixed-bag of people. Some were artisans, some poets, others were scientists or soldiers or servants working in the palace. The commoners called them sun-touched, though Ardyn could never tell if they meant that they were blessed with madness or magic. He’d seen the latter. One woman had talked a river into changing its course during a spring flood. A young man who worked with chocobos could carry entire conversations with them, and trained Ardyn’s own mount when he was first crowned. He knew of people who could speak written word to an illusory half-life, of people who could tame beasts in the field or walk through a city riot unharmed, leaving patches of quiet in their wake. 

They all died out after the Scourge, of course. Ardyn supposed there could be no sun-touched without the sun, and even with his own efforts to stem the flow of the plague, he never saw their like again. 

But if they _did_ exist…

Ardyn watched in mild disappointment as the young king of Lucis did not self-combust, but rather collapsed, listening in dejected silence to his advisors as they crowded in a distant huddle around him. They were trying to be clever, bless them. The light-haired brunette had promise, and seemed to be insinuating something that had Prompto bristling in outrage. 

_That’s right,_ Ardyn thought. _Use the chancellor of Niflheim to your advantage._ Which didn’t, in fact, seem to be an option in Prompto’s mind. The daemons in the back of Ardyn’s awareness surged forward again, triumphant: Of _course_ the descendants of the usurper would think to manipulate him in such a way, of course they would use every opportunity given them to crawl their way to the top. Noctis _Lucis Caelum,_ a pretender to the throne, degenerate son of a weakened line. He deserved the fate the Astrals placed before him, _deserved—_

“Hey.” 

Ardyn Izunia sank into the fog, and Ardyn Lucis Caelum stepped out of it. He looked down at Prompto, who was rocking forward on his heels before him, hands shoved in his pockets. 

“You doing okay?” Prompto asked. He placed a hand on Ardyn’s shoulder, and his mind felt that much clearer, more certain. He glanced at Noctis, and only saw a slim, hollow-eyed young man with lines of worry creasing his brow that belonged to a man twice his age. He could barely bring himself to hate the boy.

Strange.

“I was thinking,” Prompto said. “We might be too late for dinner tonight, but if you want, we can meet up at the chocobo post in a few days? There’s this black chocobo egg, right, and it’s supposed to hatch any day now. I wanna be there when it does.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Ardyn said. He had a fondness for that particular breed of chocobo: They were the only sort that would allow him to ride them after he started healing the Scourge. None of them would go near him now, but if he kept his distance, he should be fine. 

“Awesome,” said Prompto, and when he kissed him, it was as though a fire burned through his skin, pushing the daemons down until there was nothing left but Ardyn, pleased and young and terribly confused. “It’s a date.”

 

\---

 

The daemon deer of Galdin Quay pranced menacingly along the soft grass of the sloping hill beyond the hotel. The diminished herd of Quay deer slept in a fearful pile under the eaves of a few straggly trees, large eyes closed against the dark. The daemon deer snuffled twice, wiggled its chubby backside, and let its jaw click open. The snakes that coiled in its belly scented the air as they came, tongues darting out into the humid air off the sea, slowly undulating towards the herd. 

“Don’t you dare!”

The herd of deer perked up at the sound of a human voice, and went thundering off along the slope. The daemon turned its head towards The Man It Liked, who was standing over it with disappointment radiating off his scowling face. 

The daemon cowered. 

“You know what you did!” said The Man It Liked. The snakes slithered back into its belly, and it hung its head. “Bad! Bad daemon. You aren’t gonna do that again, are you? _Are_ you?”

The daemon inched forward, trying to nuzzle The Man’s shins. It was sorry. It had never been sorry before, not since it was a thing of flesh and bone, but it was sorrier now than any creature could ever be. It hissed and spat in misery, and The Man It Liked reached down to pet it on the back of its neck. 

“Good boy,” The Man said. “If you wanna eat something, eat the catfish, okay? Noct says they’re an invasive species anyways.”

The daemon purred at The Man’s touch, and then went bounding towards the ocean. It wasn’t sure what a catfish was. A fish that looked like a cat? A fish with whiskers? It didn’t matter. The daemon would do its best to eat every fish it could find until it got the right one, and then it would bring it back to The Man It Liked, and maybe, just maybe, get scratched behind the ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Noct can say goodbye to all the fishing he would have done in Galdin, now...


	5. Chapter 5

Prompto stood in front of the Wiz Chocobo chick pens, holding a round, aggravated pile of black fluff in both arms. 

“Sergeant Trashbag,” he said, “meet Ardyn Izunia. Ardyn Izunia, this is Sergeant Trashbag.”

“Charmed,” Ardyn said. Sergeant Trashbag made a burbling sound like one of those wailing duck toys strapped to a rock underwater, and pushed its head down into its neck ruff, becoming nothing more than a blob with eyes. “Why… exactly, may I ask, is it called Sergeant Trashbag?”

“Well, you can’t be a general right out of the gate,” Prompto said. He tickled the blob under its chest, and Sergeant Trashbag trilled. “And he likes garbage.” 

“Of course,” Ardyn said. 

All in all, Prompto thought, the date was going well. Sure, none of the chocobos seemed to want Ardyn to touch them (“They can smell the metal from the ship on me, perhaps,” Ardyn said, with a cool smile), and Noct was hovering in the background like the world’s worst wingman, scowling and trying to eat his sandwich in a threatening way, but other than that, it was great! Even Sergeant Trashbag seemed to like him, as much as the Sergeant liked anyone. 

“You can touch him if you want,” Prompto said. “He’s super soft.”

Ardyn frowned. “I’m not certain if that’s wise,” he said. Prompto inched closer, and tried looking up at him from under his eyelashes, the way people did in the soap operas Gladio watched on his phone. Noct made a snort of disgust. 

“Oh,” Ardyn said, in a breathy, helpless tone of voice. “I suppose…” He reached out his hand. Sergeant Trashbag made a soft kwark, and lifted its neck a fraction of an inch to meet him. Ardyn’s hand twitched away for a moment, then he set it down gently on the bird’s stumpy wings. 

“Gods,” he said. “I haven’t been able to do this in—“ 

Sergeant Trashbag warbled dangerously, opened its tiny beak wide, and clamped down on the tendon between Ardyn’s forefinger and thumb.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Prompto said again, hovering over Ardyn’s shoulder as they beat a quick retreat from the chocobo pens. “I didn’t know. How’s your hand? Is it hurt? I have a potion.”

Behind them, where he was slumped in Ignis’ arms, Noctis howled with laughter. 

“I’m fine, Prompto,” Ardyn said, holding out his hand for inspection. It didn’t even look swollen. “Baby chocobo beaks are still rather soft.”

“Didn’t look soft to me,” Prompto said. He took Ardyn’s hand, running his thumb over the skin of his palm in slow circles. “Sorry,” he said again. “Guess I kind of ruined it.”

“Far from it,” Ardyn said. His voice had gone all odd and soft again, the way it did when Prompto pet his hair, and his free hand moved to Prompto’s waist. “I have something to show _you,_ if you’d care for it.”

Prompto stared up at the top button of Ardyn’s ridiculously ruffled collar, and nodded. Yeah. Yeah, he figured he’d like to see some things.

“Wonderful,” said Ardyn, and swung him around to face the stone steps leading down to the slough. “It should only be a short walk.”

Prompto sighed, hooking his fingers into the loops of Ardyn’s white lace cape as they climbed down the rocks. Later, he decided. He’d find a way to get rid of the ruffle _later._

They strode across the grass by the slough, stepping around wide puddles of marsh-water on their way to the fishing dock that had become Noct’s second home. Frogs croaked in the hollows of the rocks that lined the water, fish rolled near the banks by the catoblepas, and the air hummed with the screech of cicadas and grasshoppers. Prompto nimbly sidestepped a swarm of gnats and jumped onto the dock. The boards groaned under his feet, and water sloshed over the edge, creeping up through the cracks.

“Don’t tell me we’re going fishing,” Prompto said, and Ardyn grinned. He smiled wider now, Prompto noticed. Kind of loose, the way Ignis did when he was caught off guard. Like someone had told him it was rude to show too much of one kind of emotion, and he was indulging himself just to laugh. 

“Perish the thought. No, I found a little something that might interest you, given your skill with machines.” Ardyn tossed a small, silver box at Prompto, who had to lunge forward to catch it. There were two sharp prongs in the back, and a small circle of red light at the top.

“Battery powered?” Prompto asked, turning it around. 

“Solar,” said Ardyn. “Try putting it somewhere.”

“Where?”

Ardyn shrugged. “In the dock, the earth, a tree… anything that will support it.” Prompto examined the prongs, and sheepishly pushed the box into the rotting wood of the dock supports.

He jumped at the sound of music coming from below his feet. The impact of his shoes on the dock caused a low, booming note to sound, and there was a faint jingling coming from beneath him. Prompto took another unsteady step, and a second low note rang out. 

“Natural windchimes,” Ardyn said, as Prompto leaned over to find that the smaller sounds came from the water that rolled over the wood of the dock. “It picks up the vibrations of whatever it’s embedded into.” 

“Holy shit,” Prompto said. He stepped closer to Ardyn, and the groans of the boards popping back into place came back as the trilling of high bells. “How’d you get this? What do you even use it for?”

“We used them for special events,” Ardyn said. He ran a finger over the top of the box. “There were some made to sound like wind instruments, or drums, and they would be placed in trees or fountains shaped just for this purpose. When a breeze ran past, the garden would sound like a badly-tuned orchestra. I was punished for shaking the trees when I was a child, just to see what would happen.”

“Didn’t know you had gardens in Niflheim,” Prompto said. “Thought it’d be too cold.”

Ardyn gave him a bewildered look. “Niflheim?”

“Where you’re from,” Prompto said, slowly. It took Ardyn a long moment for recognition to dawn, and when it did, his expression closed up like a door slamming shut.

“Ah,” he said. “Yes.” He pulled the box from the dock, and was about to slip it into his coat pocket when Prompto stopped him with a hand on his wrist. 

“Hey. It’s okay.” Prompto stepped off the dock, and immediately regretted losing the few inches of height he had on Ardyn. He looked up at him, sliding his fingers under the cuff of Ardyn’s sleeve. “I just mean it would be nice to see it, wherever it is. Or hear it, I guess.”

“I’m afraid this is all I have left,” Ardyn said with a wry smile, closing his fingers around the box. 

“Give me a few weeks and a guitar,” Prompto said, “and I bet I can find a way to make more.”

Ardyn gave him that loose, awkward smile again, and Prompto lifted himself up on his toes. His fingers curled in the folds of Ardyn’s scarf, and he stepped back onto the dock, giving himself just enough leverage to pull Ardyn in for a kiss. 

The dock groaned as Ardyn climbed onto it. The empty fishing supply shed shuddered when Prompto’s back hit the display cases, rattling the lures under the glass. Ardyn lifted Prompto onto the counter as easily as though he weighed nothing at all, and Prompto managed to pull back the lapels of Ardyn’s jacket so that it fell open, boxing him in. 

“Prompto,” Ardyn said, from where he was pressing his lips to Prompto’s neck. “I feel I ought to tell you, despite the fact that it would be… detrimental to my…”

“You don’t have to,” Prompto said, and scratched gently at the back of Ardyn’s head, trailing through his hair.

“Yes, but I…” Ardyn _purred_ at his touch, and he blinked slow. “Yes, a little lower, thank you.”

Prompto obliged. Ardyn kissed him, lazy and deep and insistent, and his large hands dropped to Prompto’s thighs. When his fingertips brushed along the crease in Prompto’s jeans, Prompto made an embarrassingly loud noise in Ardyn’s mouth. 

“Oh?” Ardyn asked, pulling back. 

“Don’t _stop,_ ” Prompto said, though he was pretty sure it came out as more of a whine. He tugged off Ardyn’s scarf, and started undoing the buttons of his collar. Ardyn’s skin was smooth under his shirt, pale even in the shadow of his body against the sun, and when Prompto pushed his shirt open, hands gliding over his pecs, Ardyn let out a moan that went straight to his—

“Really?” 

Ardyn growled and straightened, and Prompto leaned over to see Noct, Ignis, and Gladio walking down the slough, carrying their camping supplies. Noct’s face was pinched in horror.

“Dude,” Prompto said. “Timing.”

“On my _dock?_ ” Noct cried. “Really, Prompto? I fish there!”

“We weren’t doing anything,” Prompto said.

“Yet,” said Ardyn, and Prompto nudged his thigh with a foot. Ardyn cocked his head at Prompto in a _sorry, not sorry_ gesture, and Prompto laughed.

“This is disgusting,” Noct said. “I can’t believe this is my life now.”

“Buck up, buttercup,” Gladio said, and swung an arm around Noct’s neck, dragging him off. Ignis gave Prompto a look that could mean anything, from mild disappointment to _I do hope you have condoms._

“You’re welcome to have dinner with us, Chancellor,” Ignis said. “If his highness can behave.”

“So gracious,” Ardyn murmured. He looked back to Prompto, and gingerly took back his scarf. He didn’t bother buttoning his shirt again, though, which was cruel and unfair in Prompto’s opinion, and when he stepped back, Prompto got a good, long look at exactly how far down he’d managed to go before he was interrupted. 

Maybe they could get a hotel, next time. 

Maybe there would be a next time.

Prompto hopped down from the counter and, instead of taking Ardyn’s offered arm, lifted up a corner of his jacket and slipped inside. Ardyn started, then seemed to resign himself to the fact that he was now towing a needy, thoroughly aroused blonde at his side. Prompto slid an arm around Ardyn’s waist, and felt Ardyn sink into his touch, the tension in his shoulders at the others’ approach falling away. 

When they made it to the haven, Prompto considered telling the others that he was sorry, but desperate times, desperate measures, so on and so forth, because if he didn’t get both hands on Ardyn’s waist soon, he was probably going to explode. 

He tripped when Ardyn stopped, jerking to a halt at the edge of the haven. Prompto fell out of his hold and turned on the blue, glowing daemon-repelling runes. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, when he saw the pained expression in Ardyn’s eyes. “Noct won’t bite. He’s housetrained.”

“What the _fuck,_ Prompto.”

“Mostly.”

Ardyn glanced down, then back up at Prompto. “I must decline,” he said, with that fake, _dear Prompto_ smile. “I can’t possibly intrude.”

At the camp stove, Ignis made a low sound in the back of his throat, vague and inquisitive.

“It’s fine,” Prompto said. He came closer, and, with his body blocking off the others’ view, slipped his fingers into Ardyn’s belt. “Don’t you _want_ to come?”

Noct groaned. Ardyn’s smile twitched. 

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he said.

“They have meds for that, you kn—shit, Gladio!”

Prompto resolved to shove frogs in Noct’s sleeping bag later. “We can go to Lestallum next time,” Prompto said. “I know you’re not a fan of camping…”

Ardyn kissed him lightly. “That would be delightful, dear heart,” he said. “But I must go.” 

Ignis’ voice came out short and cold. “Step onto the haven and let me pour you a cup of tea,” he said. 

Ardyn glanced at him sharply. Prompto looked from one to the other, confused, but Ardyn only shrugged and fell back. “I lost my taste for tea ages ago,” he said. “But it’s a kind offer.” He bowed, winked at Prompto, and walked quickly off the stone slope of the haven. Prompto watched him head for the road, wondering where he might have gone wrong. Was it Noctis? It was probably Noctis.

“Dude,” he said, spinning on his heel as soon as Ardyn was out of earshot. “I was _so_ close to—“

“Don’t. Wanna know,” Noct said. 

Ignis coughed. His hands were on the tupperware of veggies he kept trying to sneak into Noct’s curry, but his fingers were trembling on the lid. When he looked at Prompto, his face was so haunted that Prompto forgot all about being pissed at Noct.

“Woah, Iggy,” Gladio said. “What’s up?”

“Prompto.” Ignis’ voice was soft. “I… I don’t know how to tell you this, but…” He took a steadying breath. “You may have seduced a daemon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time Noctis fishes on that dock, he will remember the noise he heard Ardyn make while he was making out with Prompto. Every time.
> 
> Oh, yeah, and Ardyn might be a daemon. That, too.


	6. Chapter 6

Ardyn Lucis Caelum was twenty-five, and it had been ten years since he’d set foot in a city.

“At last!” he cried, breathing in the warm salt air of Lucis’ greatest industrial town. The ends of his new cape fluttered at his waist, the delicate shape of roses twisting as he moved. “You can tell that we’re back in civilization by the welcome sight of—is that trash floating in the gutter? Odd, I don’t recall it having rained recently, do you? Oh, and all the cramped buildings, the rich houses on the hill that could fit five of these in their lawns alone, the subtle fragrance of night soil… I am overcome, Gil.” He turned to his shield, who crossed his arms. Ardyn held the man’s face in both hands. “Yes, the Astrals’ blessing on this place is apparent. I have half a mind to drop to my knees and pray.”

“Have a care,” his shield said. “People might think you’re sincere and follow your example.”

“And we can’t have _that,_ ” Ardyn said. He pressed Gil’s cheeks together, and twisted his head around for him. “That man is selling meat on a _stick._ I must have this.”

“Your Majesty.”

“For scientific inquiry alone.”

His shield followed him down the steps to a food cart, where the vendor sold the king of Lucis oil-drenched cubes of meat on a charred stick. Ardyn bowed and examined the stick with the air of a sailor in new, uncharted waters.

“One day,” his shield said, as Ardyn endeavored to eat without dripping oil on his expensive clothes—never mind that the sleeves were stained black with his handling of Scourge-ridden bodies. “You’ll be done with this trial, and you’ll have to settle down and find someone to carry on the line.”

“This is why I like having you around,” Ardyn said, through a mouthful of meat. “You always know how to put a damper on a good day.”

“All I ask is that you _try_ to learn a little dignity before we’re through,” Gil said, in a voice that came dangerously close to pleading. “You’ll need to marry someone befitting your station, which means you’ll have to act like you belong with people who don’t _eat with their hands._ ”

“What a thought,” Ardyn said. “Or, I could find someone I don’t have to lie to—“

“Your Majesty,” Gil said. “You aren’t allowed to marry imaginary people.”

Ardyn let out his subdued, well-bred laugh, held in at the edges before it became a proper guffaw, and tossed the remaining meat into the trash. “Just wait,” he said. “One day we’ll find someone who can keep up with me, and then you’ll truly be sorry.”

“Poor hypothetical soul,” Gil muttered. “I already am.”

 

\---

 

Two thousand years later, Ardyn examined the stick of grilled anak meat he’d taken from a cheerful vendor in Lestallum, and wondered what to do with it. He passed it on to an unfortunate, unsuspecting child, and wiped his fingers on one of the many handkerchiefs he kept in his armiger. It was getting easier to access the armiger lately: Before, well… before he met _Prompto_ , it felt like he was dragging his soul through a grinder just to summon a sword. Now, Ardyn was discovering things he hadn’t seen in millennia. Like the music box, and a gift from an artist he’d cured of the Scourge: A machine that could recreate any “photo” you took with it by spraying paint out of a magazine at the bottom. Ardyn had tried it twice before he was nearly arrested for vandalism. He suspected Prompto would love it.

There was no denying it now that there was something about Prompto that… made it easy to think around the Scourge that pushed at his mind. The thought that Ardyn was only ever truly in control of his own thoughts at those times dragged forward a fear he hadn’t felt since the Scourge first started to take hold. He watched himself sink back into the haze of ancient spite with a dread that threatened to choke him, and it only made his resentment of the Astrals sting worse. How _dare_ they taunt him with the promise of his old self, only to remind him that it was a temporary reprieve?

It was almost calming, though, how much Lestallum reminded him of the lower city of the old capital of Lucis. Perhaps it was the steaming piles of garbage that no one bothered to take away, despite the fact that there were plenty of men who, without jobs at the power plant, could at least lift a finger to create a functional means of waste disposal. It could have been the street musicians as well, or the artists who sat on the steps by the outlook and drew caricatures for pocket change. 

If Prompto were in Lestallum, he would probably be drawn to either the power plant or the market first. Dynamic landscape shots and the color and texture of the market would prove to be irresistible. Ardyn took the path to the market first, tugging his sleeves over his hands to protect them from the glare of the sun. 

He hadn’t expected to find Prompto in the city so soon, but there he was, taking a picture of a crate of beans with his phone and laughing to himself. Ardyn stepped behind him, but before he could wrap an arm around his waist, Prompto spun around and shoved his camera right in Ardyn’s face. 

“Switched it to selfie mode,” he said, as though that wasn’t _utter_ gibberish. “Saw you over my shoulder.” He lowered the phone, and Ardyn frowned slightly. His eyes were red and puffy around the edges, and he had the pale, gaunt look of exhaustion. 

“My dear,” Ardyn said, taking Prompto’s cheek in one hand. “Are you unwell?”

“Didn’t really sleep much,” Prompto said. “But I’m okay.” He glanced to the side, his eyes going tight with something that looked uncomfortably like shame. 

“Where are your compatriots?” Ardyn asked. They weren’t in sight, but that didn’t mean they weren’t _there,_ bless their protective little hearts. 

“They’re around,” Prompto said. “We… kind of had a fight.”

“Oh?”

Prompto stepped out of his touch, and Ardyn instinctively closed the distance, following after him. “I know it’s kind of early, but I sprung for an extra room tonight. Thought we might need, you know. Alone time.”

Ardyn couldn’t exactly say no to _that,_ could he? He let Prompto lead him through the market. Prompto was tight-lipped, not his usual talkative self, which was concerning. How dire had his argument with his friends been? Ardyn wasn’t particularly interested in digging out the roots of conflict in the prince’s retinue, but he supposed for Prompto’s sake, he might have to give it an honest try.

Prompto’s extra room was on the third floor of the Leville, had blissfully heavy curtains over the windows, and it came complete with a meager attempt at room service. Prompto jiggled the wine bottle in its bucket as Ardyn sank onto the creaking mattress of the bed. 

“I’d offer you something to drink,” Prompto said, “but Iggy thinks you don’t really need to.”

“Pardon?” Ardyn asked, in the midst of kicking off his boots. Prompto met his eyes, then, and Ardyn felt that fear again, hot and thick in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Prompto said, and his voice cracked. “I guess Iggy’s right. He didn’t mean it, but… but it’s not like anyone would actually _like_ me, the way you like me, unless they were, you know.”

Prompto covered his eyes for a moment, and sighed. 

“A daemon.”

Ardyn raised an eyebrow. “And this… this would be because…”

“Because I can talk to them,” Prompto said. It all came out in a rush, one that Ardyn had to struggle to untangle: The deer, the imps, Prompto’s gradual understanding of his powers. The way he learned that nagas liked to be flattered and ronins only listened when you were on your knees, begging for mercy. The tonberry that snuggled with him on a dock during a late night fishing trip, the daemonic coeurl that purred like a motor backfiring and batted him with a paw so hard that he broke three ribs. When he was done, he stood before Ardyn, panting lightly, looking like a small animal frozen in the gaze of a behemoth.

 

\---

 

Prompto waited for Ardyn to respond. Waited for him to laugh, to say, _What a foolish thought. Of course I am entirely human and desperately in love with you, Prompto Argentum, the man who couldn’t even make employee of the month at a shitty camera store for three years running._ Instead, there was just silence. Not even the sound of breath, and Prompto thought that maybe, for daemons, breathing was like eating: Not necessary, but fun to try out sometimes. Just like Prompto.

“Don’t leave,” Ardyn said, even though Prompto hadn’t moved. He lay a hand on the bed, and Prompto sat next to him, refusing to meet his eyes. “It seems you are laboring under a misconception.”

Ardyn took Prompto’s limp hands in his, and spoke into his ear.

“I was born at the start of the modern era,” Ardyn said, “in the first great hall of the Lucian kings—“

His father was the last of a line of warrior kings, struggling to contain the borders of his country as bandits from conquered nations whittled away at the thin line of the Lucian military. Ardyn was given a shield at the age of three, forbidden from leaving the grounds of the great hall by seven, and wore the title of Crown Prince like he would a coat made two sizes too big. His mother was sun-touched, a healer who could sing wounds closed and hum fractured bones into place—

_”What’s a sun-touched supposed to be?” Prompto asked._

_“Someone who can speak magic to life,” Ardyn told him. Prompto looked down at their joined hands, and pinched his lips tight._

His father died when Ardyn was nine, and his mother, heavily pregnant and unused to the burden of rule, took the throne as regent. When Ardyn was ten, the Scourge came, heralded by a meteor that brought the Titan to his knees, and the Astrals came before him as the people of Lucis flocked to the capital city, and declared him the King of Light. The ancestral magic in his bones had merged with that of his mother, making his ability to heal a matter of touch and will, and the Astrals used their power to change it just a fraction more. When he first took the Scourge from the living body of a supplicant in the great hall, Ardyn had fallen into a fever for days, but the supplicant lived.

It got easier, after a time.

When he was fifteen, the sun was starting to peer out through the darkness of the Scourge, and Ardyn left home with his shield at his side. There, he learned how to take entire daemons into his flesh, and all that remained after was a darkness to his fingers and a trembling that wouldn’t go away for hours.

When he was thirty-six, his shield left him.

When he was forty-two, his throne no longer awaited him.

When he was two-hundred, he cursed the Astrals at the gates of the land of the dead, and swore vengeance with a voice that echoed with the roar of the creatures that shared his skin.

“And now,” Ardyn said, as though Prompto’s brain weren’t in the process of imploding like one of Ignis’ attempts at making a flan, “I can think clearly as I haven’t since the start, and you think it’s the _daemon_ that wants you?”

“Uh,” said Prompto. 

“Prompto. You approach daemons like they are the creatures they were before. You, bless you, you sent a daemonic deer after the local fishing of an entire tourist outpost because you wanted to preserve an endangered species. And you think you _talked_ me into this?”

“I’m, I’m still kind of trying to deal with the whole eating-the-Scourge thing, actually.” Prompto withdrew his hands from Ardyn’s.

“I wouldn’t call it eating—Prompto, what are you doing?”

Prompto crawled under the covers of the bed, wrapping them around himself. “Coping,” he said.

He heard Ardyn shift behind him, and a large hand rolled him onto his back. Prompto stared at the ceiling. 

“Take all the time you need,” Ardyn said, petting his disheveled hair. “I’m certainly not getting any older.”

“Dude? Not the time.”

“My apologies.”

They lay there for what felt like hours, Prompto just staring at nothing, trying to work around the screaming in the back of his mind while Ardyn, Mr. Surprise, I’m A Thousand Daemons Wrapped Up In Your Best Friend’s Genes, ran a hand through his hair and looked at him like he’d caused the sun to rise. 

Finally, as the sun turned the curtains at the window a mottled orange, Prompto spoke.

“So,” he croaked, and cleared his throat.

“Yes, my dear?” Ardyn said. Prompto sat up, dragging the bedsheets with him. 

“Think you might be up for some of that wine?”

The wine was terrible. Even Prompto, who once brought a box of “Kenny Crow’s Certified Abomination Station Hard Cider” to Noct’s for his eighteenth birthday, had to excuse himself to wash out his mouth in the bathroom sink. And so the wine bottle lay forgotten in a bucket of slowly melting ice. After a while, nimble fingers dropped a red scarf around the bucket, tucking it in an impromptu nest. Ice clinked when a heavy jacket flopped on the desk next to it, followed shortly by a black vest studded with spikes. A low thud made the paintings on the walls rattle. The bed creaked, a hiss of breath raked over the hum of the air conditioner, and there was a heavy thunk as the metal headboard made contact with the plaster wall behind it. 

Prompto lay with his back against the headboard, both hands raised overhead to grip the top bar. This was probably a bad idea. He probably should’ve stopped when he unbuttoned Ardyn’s shirt, buried his nose in the curls of his chest hair, and made a weak noise in the back of his mouth that would have sent anyone else quietly backing out the door. He should’ve stopped when he ran his hands appreciatively up Ardyn’s arms and made a comment about how _carrying all those daemons must be a… hell of a workout,_ and Ardyn had given him a pained, twisted grimace before he laughed helplessly into Prompto’s shoulder for at least a minute.

There was no reason for either of them to continue when Ardyn had stopped, looking somewhat sheepish and so young that Prompto almost considered all that talk of being an immortal king to be bullshit, and said, “You’ll forgive me, I hope. It’s been some time.”

“That’s fine!” Prompto had said, his still-exhausted brain having no room for anything but the stark, humiliating truth. “I haven’t done this at all! Oh gods.”

But Ardyn had only kissed him then, and pushed Prompto up against the headboard. He kissed down his neck while Prompto kneaded his hair and the tight muscles of his back, and had to stop several times just to luxuriate in his touch. When he reached Prompto’s abs, he grinned and lifted his legs, one after another, to rest on Ardyn’s shoulders.

“Wow,” Prompto babbled. “I guess I’m more flexible than I—oh.”

Ardyn’s lips parted over the head of Prompto’s cock, and even the frantic mantra of _oh gods, he’s made of daemons but I don’t care, why don’t I care?_ was drowned out in the white noise of pleasure.

No one had ever given him a blowjob before, but Prompto was willing to state for whatever record would listen that this was probably in the top percentile of all blowjobs in the history of the universe. He’d been kicked out of the tent or warned away from hotel rooms enough times to know that it was probably addicting as hell, and as Ardyn did a curious thing with his tongue on the underside of Prompto’s cock, he wanted to scramble for his phone, text Noct, and say that it was fine, now, he _got_ it, you guys can have all the alone time you need.

He didn’t, though, because if Noct knew what was happening, he would probably set the door on fire just to break in and drag Prompto away.

“Holy fuck,” Prompto said, and hooked his feet together behind Ardyn’s back. “Ardyn, you gotta… I’m gonna…” His thighs were trembling, a tight heat clenching in his gut, but Ardyn kept on, eyes trained on Prompto like this was all he ever wanted to do, like he was meant to be there between Prompto’s thighs, he’d bought realty there, he’d taken over the block there, he’d—

Hollowed out his cheeks and—

His hands were cupping Prompto’s ass and—

Thankfully, Prompto couldn’t hear the noise he made when he came down Ardyn’s throat, shuddering with the force of his orgasm. Ardyn pulled off of his cock with a wet sound, far too pleased with himself, and Prompto unlatched his hands from the headboard and swung his legs off his broad shoulders. He held onto Ardyn’s chest and, legs still shaking, pushed him down on his back. 

The cry Ardyn let out when Prompto ran a tongue over his nipple was loud enough that Prompto tried again, and again, hands roaming over Ardyn’s body as he sought out the spots that would make _Ardyn_ come undone, this time. Ardyn’s stomach was softer than Prompto’s, not as defined, but he seemed to be built on a scale slightly larger than most people who weren’t professional shields. 

“So, hold on,” Prompto said, when Ardyn was nothing more than a pleased, heavy-lidded mess under his touch. “Are the daemons, like, aware of this?”

“Darling, I can’t say,” Ardyn murmured. His voice was dreamy, like he was talking in his sleep. “I can barely feel them… I believe, ah. Well. That’s awkward.”

“What.” Prompto straddled Ardyn’s chest, and placed his hands on his shoulders. “What’s awkward? Is it me? I mean, I know it’s me, I’m always—“

“They seem to be of a mind to _wreck_ you,” Ardyn said. 

Prompto paused. “Huh.”

“To be honest, I agree,” Ardyn said, and Prompto’s breath fell out of him as he was flipped onto his back. Ardyn climbed over him, and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. “But unlike them, I would much prefer to take my time.”

He did. The sky was pitch dark when Prompto, writhing on the sheets and silently thanking the gods that he’d remembered to swipe Noct’s lube, felt the press of Ardyn’s cock against his entrance. He tensed, and Ardyn laid a hand on his neck, warm and steadying, rising and falling with his breath. When Ardyn pushed in, Prompto wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him down. 

They rocked together slowly, Ardyn giving Prompto time to adjust as his hips rolled expertly against him. Prompto whispered into his neck, nonsense words about Ardyn being perfect, about how _good_ he was, how it was okay to go faster, _just a little faster, please._ When Ardyn obliged, Prompto just gasped and bit high on his neck, sucking at the mark he made. 

There were more than a few of them trailing up Ardyn’s neck already. They faded fast, his skin regenerating as Prompto’s teeth dug in, but that just made Prompto move over them again, making Ardyn groan and thrust deeper. 

Prompto came a second time between them, streaking his own chest and neck. Ardyn moaned low and bucked into him _hard,_ his pace quickening so that all Prompto could do was roll his head back on the mattress and gasp in time with every thrust. When Ardyn came, he felt it, warmth filling him as Ardyn cupped his face in one hand and cried his name in a broken, cut-off shout.

They lay there for a minute, Ardyn a heavy weight over him, Prompto stroking his hair, before Ardyn pulled out and rolled him into his arms. 

“Fuck,” Prompto said, with feeling. Ardyn grinned and kissed him on the forehead.

“Yes,” he said. “An apt assessment.”

 

\---

 

Noct picked up his phone for the twenty-third time that hour, feet tapping against the wall of his, Ignis, and Gladio’s hotel room. 

“No messages,” he said.

Ignis, who had been stress-baking Prompto’s favorites all day, set a tray of tarts on a wire rack to cool. “We need to trust his judgment,” Ignis said. “Prompto wouldn’t willingly put himself in danger. He said they’re only going to talk, and goodness knows that if anyone’s safe with… with a daemon, it’s Prompto.”

“Still can’t believe he touched that lich’s balls,” Gladio said, from where he was flipping through a magazine. Ignis sighed. 

“Balls of light, Gladio,” Noct said. “I don’t want to think of Prompto actually… I mean, it’s bad enough that Ardyn’s _Ardyn._ My friend getting some daemon ass is the last thing I want to—“

“You know he took the lube, princess.”

“ _As I said, Gladio._ ” Noct jumped when his phone buzzed, and quickly turned it on. “It’s Prompto!” he shouted. The others looked up, and Noct swiped through his lock screen. 

There was a long moment while Noct read through the message. He tapped the screen. He read the message again. Then he set the phone down on the bed, rolled over, shoved his face in the mattress, and screamed.

“That’s a good sign,” Ignis said, and picked up his phone.

On the screen was a picture of Prompto’s face, looking pleased and a little exhausted. He was smiling, and over his bare shoulder was the blurry shape of what could only be a pale, naked ass. 

_He isn’t a daemon,_ said the first text.

“Thank the Six,” Ignis said. “That’s a relief.”

“Scroll down,” Noctis said, in a muffled voice. Ignis’ nostrils flared, and he covered his forehead, fingers clutching at the drooping strands of his bangs.

_He’s like, a thousand daemons,_ said the second text. _But it’s fine. He likes me! Will tell u more later. Thx for the lube <3 <3 <3 <3 _

“Oh dear,” Ignis whispered. “I… I hope they used protection.”

Noctis rolled onto his back, yanked a pillow over his red, horrified face, and screamed again.


	7. Chapter 7

Prompto collapsed on the bed face-first. 

He’d _tried_ to walk. He made an honest effort at getting to the bathroom, but then his trembling legs had given way and Ardyn had to intervene. Then they both noticed the whirlpool tub, which they thoroughly defiled, then they made it halfway to the bed before Prompto learned exactly how much cock his poor, earnest throat could conceivably take, _then—_

Ardyn patted Prompto on the ass, and Prompto whined.

“Perhaps we might have gone too far,” Ardyn said. 

“Never,” Prompto whispered, and rolled into his arms. The best thing about Ardyn, he’d found, was that he was a cuddler. Maybe it was a thing with guys who had arms that could break a normal guy in half. Gladio was a serial snuggler, as Prompto had found out on their second night in the tent, when he and Noct were crushed together under Gladio's beefy, immovable arms for a solid three hours. The moment he passed out, anything within a four foot radius was fair game. Prompto had a few amazing shots of Gladio gently holding a bright blue, vaguely unsettled chocobo that he would carry with him to the grave.

“I want to know something,” Prompto said, into Ardyn’s bicep. “Your mom, you said she could _talk_ people better?”

“She sang, actually,” Ardyn said. His voice was so much deeper there, under his chin. “But yes, she was a healer.”

“Was it just, you know, little stuff?” Prompto ran his fingers up Ardyn’s chest, and felt an appreciative shiver at his touch. “Scrapes and cuts?”

“Gods, Prompto, it’s been so long… No, I don’t believe so. I recall she could call a person back from the brink of death, if she had to. To hold them there until the healing could be completed.”

“And other people who could… talk magic. They could do the big stuff, too?”

Ardyn shifted, moving Prompto with him. “I suppose. I’ve heard of a man who moved a hurricane off course. Nearly killed him. And there was the woman who stopped a battle for an hour—There’s a folksong about her, you know.”

“I might’ve heard that one,” Prompto said. He felt breathless, jittery, the seed of a terrible, impossible thought taking root in his mind. “Ardyn. You don’t _want_ the Scourge, right? You want it gone, don’t you?”

Ardyn laughed. “That goes without saying, my dear. It will be some time yet before the Astrals’ plans in that matter can come to fruition.”

“Yeah, but if we ignored that,” Prompto said. Ardyn went still. “What if I—“

“Prompto,” Ardyn said, a stern edge creeping into his voice. “This isn’t a bad fever. This isn’t even a hurricane. It’s the _Scourge.”_

“I hear you,” Prompto said, “but I want to talk to it. Them.”

Ardyn was silent for a long moment. “You want to talk to the Scourge?” he asked.

“Or the daemons that are mixed up in it,” Prompto said. “Whichever.” He wriggled in Ardyn’s grip, and rolled him over so Prompto was lying on top of him, staring down into Ardyn’s golden brown eyes. “I think I can do it.”

Ardyn sighed. His sigh went on, and on, no longer an expulsion of breath but the slow sinking of his skin, the pink of warm blood sloughing away until his face was ashen and pallid. Then, like ink rising up through the thick pages of a book, darkness formed in the hollows of his eyes. It spread under his cheeks, trailing down like tears to pool at the edge of his mouth and chin. When he opened his eyes again, they were all black, with a pinprick of gold. 

“Hi,” Prompto said, sitting naked on the physical manifestation of the Starscourge. “I’m Prompto.”

Ardyn didn’t answer. 

“I know you’ve been here for a while,” Prompto said. His hands shook when he held Ardyn on either side of his head, slack skin slipping under his fingers. “Don’t you want to move on? Let go of him?”

“And you know what?” Prompto whispered, bringing his lips close to Ardyn’s ear. “I think I can help you do it.”

 

In Altissia, where she was hiding out in a small, cramped storage closet in an empty winter condo, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret looked up at the shadowy form of her messenger, Gentiana. Gentiana’s hair was dark over her eyes, but Luna could see that despite this, her eyes were open. Her brows furrowed, and she turned so much like Pryna or Umbra did when they caught a scent on the air, that Luna would have laughed if she weren’t so thoroughly exhausted. 

“Is it the Empire?” Luna whispered. “Have they found us?”

Gentiana never warned her of the Empire’s movements. She believed that Luna should find her way herself, which meant traveling at night regardless of the daemons that prowled in the dark, sneaking past fortified bases and running from MT patrols. It meant scraping together what food she could find, it meant trying not to raise her voice when Ravus tried to reason with her, it meant praying that the next time Umbra came back with the journal, it wasn’t empty, it meant—

“No,” Gentiana said. “The threads of fate are unwinding. There is another hand at play.”

Luna lay her head against a sack of flour. Unwinding didn’t sound unusual. Things were unraveling faster than she could keep up as it was. What was one more complication in a gods-cursed mess of them? She risked another glance at Gentiana, who was still tilting her ear to some unknown voice, and fell back into an uneasy sleep.

 

In his own room in the Leville, going over Prompto’s excitable texts with his concerned Crownsguard, Noctis shrieked at the touch of something cold and wet on his leg.

Umbra sat on the floor of the hotel room, tail thumping on the carpet. His eyes gleamed with the magic of the Oracle, and he barked so loudly that Noct dropped his phone, which cracked as it hit the floor.

“We need to find Prompto,” Noct said, voice tight with fear. “Something’s happened.”

 

“I know you’re scared,” Prompto said. He ran a thumb over the side of Ardyn’s ruined face. “It’s okay. I’ll stay with you until it’s over. But you’ve been hanging on for so long. It has to hurt, doesn’t it?”

Ardyn let out a horrible keening breath, and Prompto pulled him close, trying not to think of the wetness seeping into his skin. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. You didn’t _want_ this, it just happened to you. But you can let go now. I’ll help you.”

Ardyn’s hands dug into Prompto’s back, and for a moment, the sharp nails felt like claws.

“You can remember who you used to be,” Prompto said, trying to _will_ his words to be true. “And whoever you were, before you became a daemon, you wouldn’t want to be stuck here. You want to let go. You want to burn out the Scourge—“

Ardyn hissed.

“Uh, without killing Ardyn. He’s been carrying you this whole time because he didn’t want you to die alone. Now you don’t have to. Come on. Come on, let go of him. It doesn’t matter if the Astrals say you can’t go, because I’m telling you that you can, and if I’m telling you, that means it’s true. I’m gonna see you through it, okay? I’m right here.”

Darkness flared in Ardyn’s skin, rising and disappearing in patches. “You’re doing so good,” Prompto whispered. His head was a massive ache, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He kept murmuring encouragement, even when his ears started to ring, even when Ardyn’s skin grew white-hot and blisters formed on the pads of Prompto’s fingers. He kept it up until he couldn’t look anymore, and his eyes ran, and the pressure in his ears felt ready to burst. He kept going until he couldn’t hear his own voice, and his hands slipped down Ardyn’s sweat drenched neck and he fell limp onto his chest.

 

In the darkness of the Alstor Slough, hunters camping out in the havens surrounding the lake were roused by the sound of screaming. When they found the source of the cries, they came upon men and women staggering in the underbrush, some babbling in languages long dead, some calling out for their families, others silent and shaking as the hunters took them by the arm. 

A man being stalked by imps in Leide turned to find a dark mist rising from the shoulders of a crowd of confused, sobbing children.

Cindy Aurum, holding a shotgun as she watched a ronin pace the edges of the warding lights around Hammerhead garage, nearly dropped her weapon when the ronin collapsed, rolling into the light in the form of a young woman with dark, shoulder-length curls.

In Altissia, a middle-aged woman stumbled out of a painting and cursed loud enough to send the security guards running. "My own damn painting!" she shouted, as they dragged her out. "Turned into a daemon in my own damn painting!"

In Galdin Quay, surrounded by the carcasses of its nightly haul, the daemon deer opened its mouth and coughed out four snakes, which dissolved into dust on the sand.

And in an upstairs room in Lestallum’s Leville inn, a door slammed open and Noct, Gladio, and Ignis came running in with a dog at their heels. Ardyn Lucis Caelum sat up, holding a naked, unconscious Prompto in his arms, and looked to them all with a face so young and open that he was barely recognizable.

“Good evening,” he said. “I don't believe I can explain.”


	8. Chapter 8

It had been nineteen hundred and sixty-three years since Ardyn had felt cold, and he wasn’t certain that he relished reliving the experience. He summoned a red shirt from his armiger, buttoned sideways in the old Lucian style, and a pair of black trousers he’d bought from a shop owner when Insomnia was first founded. They hardly matched, but he was loath to put on the old clothes that lay scattered on the floor of the hotel room. 

The loss of the Scourge struck him like a hammer blow every time he breathed. It was like stepping out of deep water: All his senses were heightened, overwhelming in their intensity, and the feeling of being _alone_ in his own head was so profound that Ardyn considered employing Prompto’s method of blanket-related coping. 

Prompto, however, was muzzily trying to put on his boxers while Noctis held him upright on the bed. Ignis and Gladio stood between him and Ardyn, and when Ardyn reached into his armiger for his clothes, they summoned their weapons in a blinding glare of magic.

“You’re so high-strung for someone so young,” Ardyn said, realizing belatedly that he’d forgotten his underthings. Ah, well. He summoned something black and lacy and not at all appropriate, and Ignis averted his eyes. 

“Ardyn?” Prompto slurred. His boxers were only halfway up his thighs, but he tried to lunge across the bed anyways. Noctis made a truly alarming noise, like a seagull struck out of the sky, and lunged after him. “You ok?” Prompto asked. “Is it… are they…”

A few months ago, Ardyn would have resented the way Prompto seemed to think of others first, going out of his way to empathize with creatures that hardly deserved it. Now, he remembered that Prompto’s earnest, forthright desire to please was not a far cry from the way Ardyn used to be. Was. Is. 

Gods, it was confusing.

“Not a one left,” Ardyn said. Prompto beamed.

“Good,” he said. He fell onto the bed, ass bared to the world at large and his best friends in particular. “That’s good.” 

“There he goes again,” Ignis said, as Prompto’s eyes fluttered closed. Noctis hastily shoved his boxers to his waist, then looked to Ardyn, eyes narrowed dangerously. 

“Alright,” he said. “You’re gonna have to _try_ to explain, because no way would Prompto get like this just from…” He made a helpless gesture.

“The word you’re thinking of is sex,” Ardyn said, with a smile. “You see, your… it’s still your highness, is it? Not yet crowned? Well, your highness, when two people love one another very much…”

 

\---

 

When Prompto woke, it was to the sound of water running. Someone had bundled him up in the hotel comforter, there was a stuffed fox plush tucked near his head, and the ache in his temples had settled down to a dull roar. He sat up on his elbows, and Ardyn was there in a creaking of mattress springs and a crack of joints, a hand on his forehead. 

“How are we?” he asked.

Prompto turned to him. Not much had changed about Ardyn: His cheeks were a little pinker, the lines of exhaustion on his face gone, the bags under his eyes smoothed out. He had the same stubble, the same jawline, the same bemused fondness in his eyes. He touched Prompto’s chin and kissed him, and Prompto realized, with a jolt that threatened to catch his breath in his throat, that this was just _Ardyn,_ Ardyn alone, with no daemons to influence him. He surged up and flung himself over him, knocking him onto his back with an almighty _whumph_ of pillows and blankets and tangled limbs.

“Oh, gods, no,” said a strangled, familiar voice, and Prompto twisted round to find Noctis stepping out of the bathroom. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “Prom, there’s only so much I can take.”

“Refrain from calling me Uncle Ardyn and I will be content,” Ardyn said, from where he was trapped under Prompto’s arms. Noct’s face twisted in pain.

“I’m never getting used to that,” he muttered, and Prompto laughed as Ardyn dragged him down for another kiss.

 

\---

 

There was no denying that the world had undergone some changes of its own. The population of Eos had risen overnight, with people staggering into the major cities and towns with scattered memories of succumbing to the Scourge, of their lives as daemons, and the people they had been before. Niflheim’s military suffered a crushing blow, and the emperor himself seemed to have undergone a sea change, calling off his occupation of Insomnia in favor of sorting out their daemonic refugee situation at home. Noct said maybe _he’d_ been halfway a daemon anyways, and when Ardyn went mysteriously silent and reticent, Noct cursed darkly and had to go fishing for a solid half a day so as not to strangle him then and there.

Luna came back from Altissia in time for Noct’s return to Insomnia. The city closed over Noct, Ignis, Gladio and Prompto, ignoring Ardyn as a hanger-on, and Noct found himself suddenly thrust into the mind-numbing minutiae of rule. If it hadn’t been for Gladio keeping him in line, he would’ve run back to the wilderness and become a puffy-vest-wearing hermit. Luna proved to be as adept at political maneuvering as Ignis, and stayed in Insomnia through much of its recovery. 

Prompto, though? Well, he tried to be useful, but he had other things to deal with. 

Old habits died hard, and Ardyn had thousands of years to develop his. He kept forgetting to eat. He pushed himself too far without thinking—He broke his ankle two months in by misjudging how far a human body, not occupied by daemons, could jump, and had to bear with Noct’s snide remarks and smug looks as he hobbled around the Citadel in a boot for months. Temperature was a problem, as well, and too many scents and sounds at once tended to overwhelm him, as he wasn’t as used to feeling _quite_ so strongly.

“I assure you,” he said, as he and Prompto stepped out of Prompto’s new Crownsguard vehicle and into the cavernous entrance of what Cor Leonis had called The Tempering Grounds. “I’m hardly a wilting flower, Prompto.”

“Uh huh,” Prompto said, wrapping a scarf around Ardyn’s neck. It was a new one, dark blue to match his suit, and Prompto couldn’t resist tugging it to bend Ardyn down for a peck on the cheek. “You pretty much lived in the fireplace last week.”

Ardyn took Prompto’s arm and led him through the cave mouth. “You can hardly blame me for _that._ I’m of the opinion that King Noctis adjusts the temperature at random just to spite me.”

“He wouldn’t,” Prompto lied. 

They picked their way around the armor of fallen warriors, strangely still-lit braziers, and the occasional strongly-worded warning scrawled along the walls, and stopped just at a line of intact skeletons. 

“Huh,” Prompto said. “That looks inviting. What do you think? Zombies?”

“Possibly,” Ardyn said. “The master of this place never did have any sense of taste.”

There was a whirl of wind, and Prompto grabbed at Ardyn as dust and debris rolled at their feet. The cave seemed to _sigh,_ and Prompto looked up into the masked eyes of a white-haired man in full armor, standing amid the wreckage of the cave with his sword drawn. 

Ardyn smiled. 

“Gilgamesh,” he said, in the cheery voice that Prompto had come to know as Ardyn at his most infuriatingly smug. “It _has_ been a while.”

The man known as Gilgamesh turned his unreadable gaze from Ardyn to Prompto. His fingers flexed on the hilt of his sword. Then he slowly lifted his mask free, closed his beautiful, ghost-pale eyes, and threw his mask to the floor with a clang. 

“Ardyn,” he snarled, and Ardyn’s shit-eating grin widened. “You son of a _bitch._ ”

 

\---

 

The former daemon deer of Galdin Quay morosely chewed at the leaves of a bush at the edge of the beach. It had tried to go back to the herd, but the herd was having none of it, skirting around it whenever it approached. Then it had tried to go to the sea, out of some residual need to seek out fish for the Man It Liked, but it was pushed back by the waves and had to shiver to itself next to the banked fire of the haven instead, bleating miserably in a failed effort to hiss with the wrong type of mouth. 

Everything had gone wrong since the snakes disappeared. At least with them, it hadn’t been alone. 

The deer moved on from the leaves, which weren’t doing much, and it dragged at clumps of grass instead. It had to watch what the herd ate just to figure out what to do again, and it had nearly been attacked by giant crabs more than once when it looked for shelter at night. 

It lifted its blocky head at the sound of movement. There! Behind it, near the stretch of sand! It spun on its stumpy legs, eyes wide, and opened its mouth to hiss only to remember that its belly was just full of grass, berries, and leaves now. 

The Man It Liked, standing next to a taller man it didn’t know, smiled and reached down to pet the deer just above the nose. 

“Hey, little buddy,” he said, and the deers tiny heart swelled with true, unabashed delight. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten _you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, folks! Ardyn and Prompto adopt the Quay deer, which Prompto names Noctis Lucis Caelum Jr. and dresses up in little black sweaters when it's cold. Every now and then, Gilgamesh will materialize in their living room to check in on them (and sometimes on Cor, bless him). Sometimes, King Noctis will show up at the Citadel to find Ardyn just chilling on his throne, like, "Oh, is this... is this yours? I'm _so_ sorry," because being purged of the Scourge doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't still a total smartass.


End file.
